/lit/ - Literature

What's the consensus on this?

>>10906865
No Audiobooks.

What are your favourite books, sffg?

Probably last thread before deadline, get hype.

Downloads: http://b-ok.org/s/?q=Childhood%27s+End

>>10906946
library at mount char

Is the Fifth Season actually good?

Some things about it sound really interesting but others sound like Hugo bait (not that I fully align with the Sad or Rabid Puppies), but have you read the Short story 2017 winner!

https://uncannymagazine.com/article/seasons-glass-iron/

Its awful.

Sanderfriend a best

>>10907039
"The glass throne cracks. There is a sound like hard rain, a roar of whispers as the glass hill shivers into sand. It swallows fur and shoes; it swallows Amira and Tabitha together; it settles into a dome–shaped dune with a final hiss.

Hands still clasped, Amira and Tabitha tumble out of it together, coughing, laughing, shaking sand from their hair and skin. They stand, and wait, and no golden apple appears to part their hands from each other.

“Where should we go?” whispers one to the other.

“Away,” she replies, and holding on to each other, they stumble into the spring, the wide world rising to meet them with the dawn."

>>10907039
Mediocre, reads like a gay Sanderson.

webnovels are novels too

>>10906865
Xanxia pill collecting shit.

But with fun prose and and MC who isnt a soulless killing machine like in most chink power fiction.

>>10906839
The arm of the Sphinx audiobook is available from my usual supplier. Sequel to the wonderful Senlin Ascends. Nice. Looking forward to reading it.

>>10903556
The Demon Princes

11 fucking years

>>10907966
it's not even in the top 100 fantasy books

>>10907966
>absolute masterpiece

>>10907966
And 7 more years till trump is out of Office so he can continue writing his next book

I just finished The Demon Cycle and The Black Prism, what should I read next?

any non-bad epic fantasy recs? just finished the first powder mage book and it blew

>>10908710
What have you read in the past? The two I mentioned in the post above yours are good as well as anything by David Eddings or Brandon Sanderson.

>>10906962
im almost finished. its really fucking good.

>>10908750
Clarke is a kiddie diddler. Read Azimov if you want quality '40s and '50s scifi.

>>10908738
favorites are thomas covenant, earthsea, and the worm ouroboros

recently i've been reading first books in series to scope them out and haven't liked them much: stormlight, song of ice and fire, wheel of time dagger and coin, and now powder mage. maybe i just don't like modern fantasy, but they're not clicking. was thinking of doing memory, sorrow & thorn but it looks sort of generic

>>10908768
Stormlight is fantastic, but you have to suffer for the first half of the first book. RR Martin sucks, it's a book about a show. Wheel of time is tedious, I read the first few books, which were good but had to read unpleasant ones for closure. Don't know about powder mage, but I for the most part enjoyed everything else you posted, so I might check it out. Have you read the Belgariad and Mallorean? 10 books, a day a piece really, but a cute and fun story.

>>10906962
Time to get busy.

>>10908804
This is my first time posting on lit, but I've been scifi for many years. Arthur C. Clarke is pretty weak. Heinlein and Azimov win every time against him.

>>10908758
>reading asimov over clarke

>>10907642

This, this is my favorite revenge story of all time. The concepts in it are vivid and fantastic, Jack Vance is a master of world building, and it just honestly has a great setup for each book where he takes down the Demon Prince using their unique weaknesses.

>>10906962
What is protocol after we've read it? I read it last week and can't remember any of my better discussion points. I'm gonna look up some trannys now.

>>10906946
Blindsight, which I just finished re-reading for the nth time
Bloody good book. As much as Echopraxia has been knawing itself into my heart through it's vague ending, Blindsight is a lot more concise and arguably a much better reading experience.

>>10909331
>wow man these autistic vampires in space are soooo cool

>>10907966

>>10909331
Yeah, I need to die and come back as less of a brainlet because some of those themes went way over my head. I'm not sure if it was so much my understanding of the subjects referenced or the subtleties getting buried in his writing style. I still have been turning them over in my head all this time.

>>10908710
The Wizard Knight

Just finished reading KJ Parker's Shadow trilogy and Fencer Trilogy.

It was good and interesting to read, really liked the prose, and now I want to work on a farm.

Depressed after all the "bad ending" though. Recommend me something a little happier, fantasy w/ hero gets the girl in the end or something.

>>10906946
The stars my destination.
The moon is a harsh mistress.
Hyperion
a canticle for leibowitz
Come to mind.
Any other sci fi that deals with religion, instead of compleatly disregarding it ?

>>10909661
The Sparrow

>>10908493
>demon cycle
How did you manage to refrain from putting s bullet between your teeth?

>>10909661
Echopraxia

Do i continue past fall of hyperion? People are saying that it's different but not horrible but i've read that it "answers all the questions" and I do believe that poetic nature of first two books does mask a lot of possible inconsistencies. So basically a)are remaining two books good enough on their own and b)won't they retrospectively ruin some of the more interesting parts of hyperions?

>>10909661
Blindsight

What do you guys think of the Themis Files series? I read Sleeping Giants recently on a whim and was drawn in by the concept despite some shallow characters.

>>10909140
I usually try to come up with a couple of somewhat interesting questions and then we discuss the book and nominate new ones.

>>10909833
pros: It has based De Soya who is a fucking amazing character. Worldbuilding is also top notch, Mare Infinitus is one of the comfiest and most scenic places in scifi. The Archangel class ships are fucking awesome and high concept.
cons: De Soya is a fantastic character stuck in a shit fanfic tier plot who gets sidelined. The new original characters Raul and Aenea are shit tier and it's like Simmons is jacking off to the idea of his new OCs having a tour of the world, meeting his older characters and retrospectively shitting it up with cheesy all your powers combined trope and nothing is scary anymore. Plus two of his characters is out of character as a fuck which ruins the mood quite a bit. Aenea is the stock animu messiah loli type, the plot unfolds as expected.

Good compared to other books by other authors, but Simmons should be ashamed of how much retarded characterwank he shoved into those two atrocious characters. That hack Simmons turned the fucking Shrike into a taxi, jesus on a pogostick

----

I'm currently finishing up Emerald Eyes by Daniel Keys Moran. It's very enjoyable in a weirdly pseudo-pulpy way because there are a huge amount of scifantastical things that happen, even though the centre of the story is around telepaths, a staple of scifi (I'm looking at you, Gundam, Star Wars, Foundation, Hyperion ... and a fuggtonne of other stories). Lots of things happen. I think it could have used more description, like PKD's stuff the page count is ridiculously tiny.

>>10909908
*are

I just finished first law triology. Is it as bad as I think it is?

>>10909990
you're the one who just finished it, negro

>>10908493
Anything. If you like trash like Brent weeks, literally anything will entertain you.

>>10909849
It has shallow characters, but its an easy read. I call it a toilet book cos you can easily get through it whilst taking a shit.

>>10909990
Most agree that it is, yes.

>>10909372
It's certainly a book which rewards re-reading.
I feel Watt's core strengths and weaknesses as an author overlap; he's a scientist. This gives him an expert mastery of visualising his future on an accute micro- to macro- scale in the context of engaging hard sci-fi, but equally retarding his ability to construct a narrative or cast to match his ideas.
By no means does Blindsight fall flat in these areas, but it's sad the novel's 10/10 substance are let down but7/10 style, though I would argue the lesser publisher involvement in Echopraxia is obvious by how that novel seems to be 12/10 for substance (in a bad way) and a mere 5/10 for style.

Irregardless, I would really like to take us all back a few months and shamelessly shill the fuck out of Blindsight. Any contempory scif-i fan, even if you don't enjoy the intricacies of harder sci-fi, should recognise this is required reading for the alien invasion genre. Even one small chapter of Blindsight has more riviting ideas packed into it than most novels manage in their entire length. A fucking tour de force indeed.

If you want a novel which manages to the reverse of Echopraxia, with a whopping 13/10 for style but mediocre 5/10 for substances, I suggest you read Too Like the Lightning, a novel so far but its own arse that it's actually incredibly enjoyable.

Does anyone know where to find the latest Undying Mercenaries book, Dark World? Having a hard time finding it.

>>10909990
What didn't you like?
It's only good for some of the action and characterization.

Is Hyperion any good?

Entry level pleb here

>>10910673
better question, should I use the flowchart instead?

>>10906839
Vin Venture is not dead

>>10908341
>>10907966
>>10909343
>>10908379
Roothfuss is a really unlikable person and I hope people forget about this fag. His Goodreads account is beyond obnoxious.

>>10910673
Hyperion is great. Fall of Hyperion is pretty bad. Skip the later 2 volumes of the series.

>>10910691
Any examples of Rothfuss being unlikable? Love that sort of stuff

>>10910694
>Fall of Hyperion is pretty bad
Citation need, it's tonally different but wraps up the rather open ending of Hyperion well.

>>10910754
Read the The Wise Man's Fear

>>10910784
It's not that they're only tonally different. I couldn't care less about android fucking Keats. He's just a crappy device reeking of pretentiousness that allows Simmons to advance the plot and explore his boring universe.
There was more emotion in any narrative of the first book than in the entire shallow inner struggle of Sterne.

can sfgf explain this book to me?

>>10910784
>wraps up the rather open ending of Hyperion well

That's the problem

Any fantasy set in a Greek or Persian like world?

>>10910595
It's on mobilism.

>>10911182
Philip K Dick didn't even like this book, neither Harlan Ellison. That's enough to put me off.

>>10911135
>android fucking Keats
Hmm that actually summarises my point rather well. Hyperion was a collection of varied short stories, each deeply personal to each character. Fall kind of substitutes that for one bland narrator, android fucking Keats, who tells a much more formulaic space opera story. I enjoyed both equally, but I can see why the shirt was jarring

>>10911347
I suppose if Fall of Hyperion was never written I could have walked away from Hyperion a little confused but satisfied, but I loved so many elements introduced in Fall that I can't help but love it. Ummon + the AIs, the war, all the shit at the end when all the planets get fucked

Ultimately I guess Hyperion alone would be a bit more /lit/, but I enjoyed the cliche bombastics of Fall.

>>10911364
Latro in the Mist.

Right, made a pretty crappy Dick chart.
If anyone's got suggestions go ahead, I've only included shit I've read so it's not that extensive but there you are.

>Explicit obvious physical, mental, genetic, behavioral differences between races
>Still pushes the "wow don't be a bigot" marxist trash
>Bad guys are religious nazi's

Contemporary fantasy is fucking atrocious

Ubik is epic
More like ubik pls

>>10911604
Any fantasy set in a Greek or Persian like world not written by Gene Wolfe?

>>10910553
Palmer and Watts are both actually good modern scifi authors, tho.

>>10911919
Watts' concepts are fascinating, but his prose is smarmy and irritating on a certain level. It's like I can feel how he thinks he's so damn smart.

>>10911897
The Thief is greek-ish but probably not what you're looking for.

>>10911897
Lion of Macedon and The Misplaced Legion

>>10907966
>absolute masterpiece
>can't even finish his debut book series after writing only 2 books
I actually enjoyed the first book a lot. If the second one had a problem it's that it didn't accomplish nearly as much as it could have. And then he just refuses to write anything else like he's in some kind of game of writer's chicken with GRRM.

>>10906865
It's a sad day when all of E William Brown's audiobooks sold more than Will Wight, and that is why will doesn't put out audiobooks anymore.

i am reading all of greg egan now, his first two books were interesting if you ignore his leaps of faith in world building and expanding his idea from science into fantasy.

>>10911364
Furies of Calderon

>>10911729
I've read Ubiq, VALIS, and DADoES, watched A Scanner Darkly. I'm actually reading The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch right now and have four other PKD books in my backlog for afterward. I am excited for my wild ride of my boy PKD and his psychedelic adventures.
This post doesn't answer your theoretical question but this is now my blog and you'll have to DEAL WITH IT mister!!!

>>10911729
I'm reading through his short story collections right now, they're pretty good.

>>10909990

Just finished the first book.. I like it. I keep finding myself looking forward to the shenanigens of dogman, threetrees, black dow, and tul.

So who is best girl, Mimara or Serwa?

>>10912692
Can someone send me a link to the /lit/ Discord server?

>>10912805
Shit, didn’t mean to reply to >>10912692

>harem story turns into cuckoldry and homosexuality

welp

>>10912828
I mean really what did you expect, willingly stepping on poop like that.

>>10906839
>want to buy the six Dune books in hardcover
so my best bet are the Ace hardcovers published in 2008-2009 but I can only find the first book online. The rest are available by chance off ebay or some used book seller, and I don't want to be stuck waiting for one missing book to be available. I don't want the Turtleback school binding set since it's tiny as fuck in comparison.

What gives? I'd have thought the more popular SF books would be easy to find in hardcover. Am I just meant to get a papercover nowadays and rebind it myself when the cover/spine eventually wears out?

>>10912007
>If the second one had a problem it's that it didn't accomplish nearly as much as it could have.
i will never not be disappointed after having to read through a snorefest of a fae orgy followed by a fucking training arc. I came into the series in love with the magic school/university shenanigans so I was really disappointed by the 2nd book.

Over halfway through Superluminary by John C. Wright and it's the most sciency sci-fi I've read so far. Really enjoying it though. Space Opera on a HUGE scale (instead of battleships in space you get battleplanets and battleSUNS). It also works as a fantasy since the protags use that super science to basically be Greek gods. The dialogue can feel a bit cheesy at times, but it fits within the context of the story.

>>10913018
>space opera
>sciency

okay.

>Space Opera on a HUGE scale (instead of battleships in space you get battleplanets and battleSUNS).

the Lensman series will blow your mind.

>>10913035
>the Lensman series will blow your mind.
I have that on my list to read, but Superluminary has been described like Lensman on a bigger scale.

Yea cuz people are building giant ocean going cities for combat now huh? Oh irght there are fucking physical reasons about how well things scale

>>10913074
What are you sperging on about?

>>10913106
battleplanets ??? What happens when they fucking drop an anti-matter bomb right up your ass??

>>10913109
Read the book and find out, goober.

>>10911729
>The Excangeneis

>(Women were forbidden from service, unless they had their neurochemistry altered to force their brains to operate like the brains of males.)
Based,

>>10911803
Nazis have been some of the most popular antagonists the last 80 years, it's hardly a contemporary thing bro.

>>10909661
Dune you silly goose

>>10909908
Endymion is those obnoxious Keats chapters expanded to novel length. If you read past FoH you're masochistic or enjoy wallowing in pigshit.

>>10911807
Second Variety
Minority Report
Man in the High Castle
Palmer Eldritch
Valis

>>10911949
And fucking goofy. What was the point of the fucking vampire in Blindsight? Why use such a silly idea in an otherwise good hard scifi book?

Anyone read The Toymakers

I want to check it out but it doesn't seem to be available on kindle so I want to make sure it's good before I buy it

>>10911803
all beings are equally entitled to life fuckface

>>10911803
>hurr durr

>>10906946
LotR, Black Company, Myth series by Robert Asprin.

>>10906946
book of the new sun

>>10913142
Lol

>>10911919
They're excellent but in markedly different ways. AKA I want them to fucking combine their skills into one mega-book

>>10913501
It's silly but it actually ties into the message at the end. that we humans evolved by mistake and the 'vampires' are going to inherit the Earth.

>>10914053
Is Blindsight Twilight fanfic?

is there any dieselpunk or fantasy/scifi early 20th century that doesn't feel like fanfiction or "Le evil Nazi's have le super technology!!!"

The era is so aesthetic and I can barely find anything worth reading

>>10910754
in a reddit ama he said hus fans are assholes because they rather want the book than to donate money to his charity. Someone also asked about the status on book 3 and he said he should look on the internet for this information

what do you guys use to read ebooks? I have a Kobo and one my friends has an Amazon, and on either one you have to create and login to an account.

I just want a nice ereader where I can drop in ebooks without some weird account/update nonsense. Should I just get a new Kobo (I want a nicer one) and install koreader?

This is now a PKD thread.

>>10914053
That's because Watts is Bio hardscifi and Palmer is Humanities scifi.

Reynolds x Palmer or Watts x Palmer would result in the coolest books.

>>10914116
It's basically the complete opposite end of the vampire spectrum to Twilight, but I cede yes it includes vampires and this makes the book very hard to shill irl

>>10914270
I aggressively agree.

>>10913462
I have read dune (only 1) I liked it kind of slow but not bad as I have herd from some of my friends. It has some pacing issues imo.
But im gona check the other suggestions.

Wheel of Time's last book was the most long winded version of "they win" I've ever read.

I'm so glad that's over. I really need to reconsider my tendency to always finish reading whatever I start.

Yes, I know there's a prequel novel. No, I don't care.

>>10914444

I stopped reading WOT after Robert Jordan died. Every few years I consider picking it back up, just to finally finish a story that was so important to me when I was a teenager, but then I remember that I've completely forgotten the plot and it would take me fucking forever to read all those books again.

>>10914465
>but then I remember that I've completely forgotten the plot and it would take me fucking forever to read all those books again
Just read the Wheel of Time Wiki to play catch up with the plot.

>>10915242
Even that is too much of an effort

>>10916236
Sounds like you're just not cut out to be a reader. Don't give up though, this too may pass.

>>10912812
bump

>>10916292
Not that guy. I just think WoT is a putrescent tumorous bulb on /sffg/ fuligin skin

>>10914214
just use Calibre you literal brainlet

>>10914214
I'm straight up murdering my eyes but I'm just using my phone with Moonreader.

>>10916392
i wish moonreader would work on my phone.
i have my ebooks on the sd card rather than internal memory. it seems to fuck with moonreader+ for some reason ever since android changed how memory is aranged in version 7. and i didnt opt to merge my memory but keep it seperate. i use readera instead but its missing a lot of features i like from moonreader. well atleast it works nice with the super amoled screen if you use white text and black backgrounds due to black pixels not actually using any electricity on amoled screens.

>>10916339
>nhentai
>implying i want a porn addicted gf who cant get past sadpanda or doesnt have motherless bookmarked.

>>10916339
>porn addict gf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-81mqN0pbg

yes.

>>10916537
"Hi Mum, I'd like you to meet my new girlfriend. She films herself publicly wearing pink wigs and no pant bottoms and talking about japanese cartoon porn for attention and donations, isn't she a real catch?"

>>10916554
"great son. once your done fucking me she can eat me out. if she does a good job she can watch next time."

>>10916312
fuck you, now you've made my shitty ancient PC going into overdriver updating discord
VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR this fucking fan won't SHUT UP

Blindsight

I have never read a science fiction book in my life, where should I start?

>>10916849
What types/genres of fiction do you enjoy reading?

i just read aurora. way too pessimistic imo

Would it be better live action or animated?

>>10917026
Animated. It's way to long to work as live action. It need a 6-10 season cartoon/anime with at least 10 episodes/season to work. Honestly, it should not be adapted yet.

>>10916909
I uhh don't read much desu hahah

>>10917026
The obvious answer is animated, but the fans want it live action. They don't seem to realize game of thrones was a one off lucky break, and fantasy tv gets no budget and cut very easily.

Also I can't imagine channeling weaves ever looking good in live action.

>>10917075
game of thrones was shit anyway

>>10917045
>>10916849
Enders Game or I Am Legend might be a good place to start, definitely read some H.G. Wells and Jules Verne if you want some classics.

>>10917075
>Also I can't imagine channeling weaves ever looking good in live action.
Imagine weaves looking like Last Airbender bending or Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li kikoho or Goku's kamehameha in Dragon Ball Evolution

I want to write characters with oddly specific superpowers fighting eldritch abominations. What genre is for me?

>get into reading the Shadow Campaigns
>buy first 3 books in mass market paperback
>find out the 4th onwards have no MMP version, only hardback and regular paperback because the publisher is too cheap to continue it when most sales are for shitty ebooks
Fuck me, I really wanted to keep reading this series too

recommend me a science fiction story where the protagonist fucks some prime alien pussy, bareback

>>10917337
seconding this

>>10914214
FBreader.

The plugin options and the freemium option is decent. Although the autotext feature is off to me. I don't think I can read The Hardy Boys without thinking of a robot voice from russia again.

>>10917337
>>10917369
Herein pussies get busy sans protection.
Protagonist isn't the human.
Carnal pleasure takes place within the bonds of holy matrimony.
ZeroG funny business is more trouble than it's worth at their age.

>>10914214
I use Google Play Books on my phone/browser. You can upload up to 1000 pdfs or epubs for free (max file size 100mb). Progress, bookmarks and the books are automatically synced in the cloud. Has a built-in dictionary, support for pop-up annotations, etc. small stuff.

FUCKTHISFUCKTHISFUCKTHIS


I just wanted a fun fantasy adventure story with a Mary Sue Kvothe not this nice guy beta shit.

wat

>>10917559
>Implying he cares after fucking the literal love god

>>10917559
I like to think he was being ironic in the passage and making fun of beta orbiters, but I doubt it

most of the epic fantasy on the recommended chart is abhorrent and should be removed

>>10917337
Undying Mercenaries

>>10917641
Goes for all epic fantasy desu.

>>10916750
What?

I finished Men at Arms by Pratchett. It was not as funny as Reaper Man but much more focused, the topics he was satirizing were much clearer and socially minded (discrimination, gun control, politics) and it didn't suffer from having several plots running at the same time. Particularly more violent than the rest of the Discworld books I've read so far but I guess that comes with the Watch books being kinda crime focused. Still quite funny as is always the case with Pratchett.

>>10917337
Just watch Star Trek. If it includes Riker or Kirk and alien pussy, they will fuck

>>10918008
God I love Discworld book covers.

Convince me Sanderson isn't another persona of Chris-chan.

>>10919379
Mistborn was the only book of his that I tried to read, and it didn't click.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing in first person as opposed to third person?
I'm about 80k words in, and I love the protagonist' way of thinking so much (turned out better than originally planned) that I am actually willing to rewrite it all in first person.
Not gonna lie, I'm inspired by BotNS.

The only problem that I see occuring is that there already are a few paragraphs that are from the perspective of another person (I don't write in multiple PoVs) and I think it wouldn't be admirable to break the protagonist's train of thougths just to insert another person's opinion or thoughts.

How can I do it? What other books are written in first person that are like BotNS? What other books insert the thoughts of another person other than the protagonist?

>hates jews
>marries a jew
was Lovecraft retarded?

>>10919423
jews aint born. theyre made via bar mitzvah.
females only carry the genes necessary to facilitate the mutation into jews for men.

>>10919434
Jews are mutts.

i>>10914214
On some Kobos you can transfer books with adobe digital editions. I've never set up a proper account for mine and it's less farting around than Calibre.

>>10919391

>>10906839
Just finished Children of Dune. Is the rest of the series worthwhile?

I'm on book 6 of Louise Cooper's Indigo series (randomly found all eight books at a used book store for under $10 and impulse bought them) and wow, these are good.

I don't want to spoil anything that happens, but the first book sets up the rest of the series, each involving Indigo facing a demon in a different land, so she can finally be free from a curse she brings upon herself.

I'm shocked I have never even heard of these before. Worth at least trying out the first book if you like self-contained adventure stories, where a character finds herself in a new land (tundra, volcano, rainforest) in each book and needs to acclimate herself to the peoples and environment.

>>10919857
Most say stop after God Emperor. Its certainly better than messiah or children but if you really enjoyed all of them carry on to chapterhouse and heretics. Avoid Brian's trash.

>>10919857
If you are even thinking about reading more, then read God Emperor. Unless you hate it, you might as well then read Heretics and Chapterhouse.

Never read anything with Brian Herbert's name on it.

>>10906839
Favorite malazan characters?

for me it was karsa, tehol, Rhulad

>>10907039
it was alright

>>10917273
The trash can

>>10919580
How come we don't have meta memes anymore?
Was there any new marco memes for 2018?

>>10920805
nothing really happens these days.
some authors are faggots but thats the norm nowadays. /outerlit/ is still full of idiots and we still get aspiring authors.
nothing changed.

>>10920805
Memes require effort.

>>10920830
I'm halfway between aspiring and author(got 3 shorts published) but I don't come here asking for advice. I only come here to reinforce Gene shilling and to diss people that read shitty epic fantasy series.

>>10919857
Messiah>Dune>GEoD>CoD>minimal powergap>Chapterhouse>Heretics

I feel like Herbert would have finished the series on a high note, despite the first two in the second trilogy not being up to par with the rest. Duncan shadily being the Kwisatz Haderach was a pretty interesting twist and likely the only thing he planned that ended up being in his son's shitty books.

>>10921267
Is it a separate trilogy? I understand there's a large time jump. Might just take a break from the series for a while then come back to God Emperor

>>10921344
Ok, take it like this. Dune starts at year 0, right?
Dune end - Y3
Dune Messiah - Y15
CoD - Y25
GEoD - Y3500
Heretics, Chapterhouse - Y5000

As I see it, there were supposed to be 2 trilogies with GEoD in the middle holding them together.

>>10919391
in fantasy, botns is a unique case. most first person fantasy is young adult shit because it's easier to self-insert and whatnot.
the advantages of 3rd person is that you can switch between multiple perspectives which is convenient for fantasy. in botns we only ever follow one person's thoughts and that entire story revolves around what severian knows and doesnt know.

>>10921461
Who started this multiple perspective meme? The earliest I recall is Dune. Herbert did it right tho and there are clear protagonists and sidecharacters. I think Chani never even gets a chapter, you only see her through the eyes of her lover

>>10917273
capelit

>>10921267
>Messiah over Dune
huh?

I liked farseer. Is liveship traders worth reading or should I skip right to tawny man?

>new Dune movie coming out
why did i not hear about this until now

will I finally be able to get a hardcover set of these series

>>10922351
I read them ages ago and don't recall her ever matching Farseer. But fuck -- if you've found an author you like for god's sake don't skip anything. If any author (or anyone) does anything for you it's so rare and precious you should leap at the chance to let them try to impress you again

>>10922699
You’re 100% right. Thanks friend, you talked me into it.

>close to finishing Citadel of the Autarch
>shit's great, though not remembering anything past the order of things in Shadow & Claw probably hurt my enjoyment a bit

>I still have no fucking idea what the fuck are the House Absolute and Azure supposed to be

Okay, hear me out on this one

>a very loose retelling of Exodus set in antebellum south
>however, the ambiguous morality of moses and god are heavily emphasized framing the story in a way that borders on lovecraftian
>the story is told from the perspective of moses' brother aaron as he watches his brother's fight against cruelty harden his heart and drive him over the edge

>>10906986
thanks for this recommendation, i finished it in 2 days. good book! what american gods could have been.

>>10922293
There's something about a man's dreams and visions collapsing all around him only to find himself looking at the future blind in all aspects and see the only solution to preserve his family and empire is anonymous death that makes it better.

>>10923332
Why didn't you just read Anansi Boys? It's Gay Man's best work

>>10917273
Read Worm, it's a webnovel that you'd be really into.

>>10923362
already read it, and I'm caught up on Ward (barring any chapter that's come out in the past 8 hours)

What I want to write is something that gets as clever as skitter with the powers but is more fantasy oriented and has a smaller cast of humans (9) and a larger cast of monsters (6 on the level of scion, 18+ on the level of the endbringers plus a whole lot of mooks on the level of regular heroes and villains)

>>10922892
i was the same, just keep reading

>>10909661
>Any other sci fi that deals with religion, instead of compleatly disregarding it ?

If you like Heinlein then check out Stranger in a Strange Land. 90% of the book is about religion and sex.

Just red The player of games. And it's quite disappointing. I did not expect much and still.
The characters are quite week and not that interesting, you can probably skip half the book and still get the same effect.
There where some great parts especially near the end.
it's my fist culture book, so maybe I'm missing something.

just finished this

what now?

>>10924301
Yea mars Jesus was interesting.

>>10924342
How was it?

>>10924347
it got progressively worse with each book, but I still enjoyed it overall

prob worth reading if you like transhumanist settings

>>10924366
>it got progressively worse with each book
So the opposite of Three Body Meme?

Well, someone at the Black Library took my idea almost verbatim about what I was going to submit for their open submissions thing.

What actually good literature do I completely copy the style of and make it Warhammer 40k-ey now so I can have it done in ten days?

Alright anons it's pretty much universally agreed that historians are the absolute best fantasy writers but what field of history should one be studying?

>>10924652
>good literature
Just write battle wank like everyone else at black library.

What was your submissions thing?

Not sure why the vampires in blindsight/echopraxia get all the hate. They're a nice take on a very dull trope, and seeing them pop up in a scifi setting rather than a fantasy setting is also subverting it a bit.
I will definitely admit that the whole thing where Valerie does some magic brainwashing shit gets a bit tenuous but it's not really a major plot point so I can look past it.

Also, does anyone else feel sorry for Valerie? All she wanted was to converse with someone who was on her level of intelligence, something she was unable to do because of the hardwired anti-vampire aggression that humans gave them to prevent them working together - doesn't work out exactly as they planned given the opening to echopraxia but nonetheless they still never talked with each other. Then when she finally does get the chance to speak to someone as intelligent as her (Bruks with Portia rewiring his brain a la Siri) he kills her.

Poor Valerie :(

>>10924680

Allah forgive me but it was a LOVECRAFTIAN rip-off for something from the Ghoul Stars sort of like The Statement of William Randolph Carter.

I don't want to write battle wank. I want to write something different and stand out from all the hacks they currently have writing for them.

>>10924715
Huh, Well good luck with it anon, nothing wrong with exposing the black library fanbase to a bit of CULTURE.

>>10924652
Your favourite S&S.

Hey /sffg/, THE LIGHTNING STENOGRAPHY DEVICE is on sale one week only for 99 cents. It's relatively risk-free at that price, and I think /lit/ will really like it.

https://www.amazon.com/Lightning-Stenography-Device-Psychedelic-Odyssey-ebook/dp/B078HSXGL5

>The first marketable thought to text device is released for public consumption in 2031. That same year, author Cassius Wagner will have a seizure. At least, that is what the novel says: the novel to which he awakens in fragments one morning after a late night of writing. This novel.

>Terrified to have a prophetic manuscript unfurling at his heels, his desperation to evade his fate prevents him from considering that his lover and editrix, Katherine Beauvoir, might be wrestling with a destiny of her own--one which seems to concern the discovery of a human skull.

>Told in four parts which peak with the magic-rich fable of a sublingual Huntress as she fights to save her King, THE LIGHTNING STENOGRAPHY DEVICE is a mystical, consciousness-expanding voyage for readers of Umberto Eco and Paulo Coelho as much as fans of Philip K. Dick or Black Mirror, and is sure to leave them questioning not just the boundaries of literature, but of reality.

You guys might also like the Book of the New Sun essay I'm working on, which has 2 parts of 6 finished and a new one coming out this week. They're at www.paintedblindpublishing.com if you're interested.

Sorry to be a shill. I just know that there are probably readers in this thread who would like this book and would like it even more if they got it for a dollar.

>>10924847
Nice cover art, but the plot sounds pretty meh and impossible for 99% of authors to pull off.
>author is a woman
Ah, yeah, definitely gonna pass thanks.

>>10924680
its anthropologists actually

>>10924847
I'm anal about books and openings and this got dropped in the first paragraph:

"The dissent of Hermes began, not with the creation of their Device, but with the morning his brother dropped the first printout beside breakfast's hash browns. This, at the time, engendered disinterest."

As an editor, If I was sent this manuscript, I would probably stop reading at this point and begin skimming to see if the rest of the chapter was of the same quality.

The first sentence begins by using the phrase 'the dissent of [person]', which is a somewhat jarring and unusual use. Then it continues on, a bit long, ending in a phrase which almost hints at a change in tenses. Then, confusing the reader further, the next sentence starts with 'this' but then comma 'at the time,' further confusing the possible tenses in the reader's head. And then 'engendered disinterest' is another abnormal usage which should be avoided so close to the beginning of a novel, when you're trying to catch the interest of a reader.

Only sperging because I'm an editor and you may be the author and if so, I'm telling you to get another editor.

>>10908493

1. T'sain
2. Shaluke the Swimmer
3. Zan Zu from Eridu
4. Alusz Iphigenia Eperje-Tokay

>>10925204
BBBBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZ

>tfw I finally got around to reading Conan
Great stories, I've only read The Phoenix on the Sword and The Frost Giants Daughter yet but I'm already caught by the stories and world.

>>10925921
Mah nigga. Read Solomon Kane after you finish Conan.

>>10909822
great book although the first one was way better
>>10909661
pic related , its about humans finding an aylium signal and the church sending a mission there (theres some other international missions in parallel)
IRL i never got religion or why anyone would even like it , this book game me some interesting insights into the minds of religious people .

>tfw name my dunmer femsorc Spinner-of-Rope
I want to marry Spinner-of-Rope!

>>10921461
I want to write in first person because, as I already said, the protagonist grew up to become really interesting and there are things I wish to explore without having them do a monologue every time they have a thought.
Also I have a fairly unique writing style and most people have suggested me to write in first person because of it, because it offers flavour and much subtler chances of characterisation (I follow the philosophy that a person's handwriting is a mirror of that person's thought process / personality)

>>10922892
become obsessed like me and read that shit over and over again, I pretty much know the whole Book inside and out.

I finished the Black company first book (I liked it a lot) and started the second, but the second one is so bad that I dropped 1/4 way in. I just don't see a satisfying way of ending to the whole Crow with the shitty inn keeper drama. Never liked that character either, so yeah.

Give it to me straight, I'm not one to give a fuck about spoilers. Does it ever become good again? I wanna see fucking mages battling over shit not boring ass gang politics in some backwater town for 100 pages.

>>10926616
White Rose is good, later ones are kind of meh but there is one returning character that I liked in the first book. Also, a lot of people dislike Bleak Seasons, but I found first half of it strangely good.

I haven't checked here in like over a year, any good new books I've missed?

>>10926669
Blindsight

>>10926040
I'm reeding it right now 1/4 an it's great. Don't like the fact that it starts with the end. Never understood that gimik.

>>10926018
Yeah, after like 1000 more pages of Conan and then I still have half of Lovecrafts bibliography to go through. I'm planning to read Solomon Kane some day, but I doubt that it'll be this year.

>>10926687
its done very purposefully in this book . knowing how he ends up and the difficulties he has recounting the story tells you a lot about him .
anyways its a great book and i recommend the sequel if you do end up liking it .

>>10926639
I don't care if you spoil me, is best girl coming back? I'm a weak man, I might just as well get back if she does as well.

>>10926765
Yes, she's back, not as much as I would like though.

>>10911803
this. It's 2018 now, we need some good nazi protagonists

>>10926669
library at mount char

>>10918527
too bad the books are still cancerous shit

>main character in Stormlight Archives is named Kaladin
>is a paladin
is Sanderson a hack?

>>10926870
What a question. Of course he is.

reminder the Royal Assassin is the only good dark fantasy saga

>>10926942
>reading Hobb
shit taste detected

>>10927011
Sure, Sanderson baby.

>>10926942
>dark fantasy saga
?

>>10926870
I hate how there's no real consistency in ANY of Sanderson's characters name. He goes from Shallan to Kaladin to Jasnah like nobody's business. I autistically rage how he doesn't consistently stick with one culture when he picks names from one of his fictional cultures.
If some people from a culture he created have arabic-like names, shouldn't most (not all, of course) other names also be arabic-like?
It's like having 2 brothers from the same family and culture and country, and one is named Fwargsae'dwe and the other is Steve.

>>10927081
Shut up, Steve. You were an accident. That is why you don't get a cool name.

>>10927081

Let it go, Steve

Is there a genre or author in western fiction that will give me the same shameless wish fulfillment as reincarnation japanese web novels?

Something like wanky kingdom building or dude gets reincarnated as a kid and everyone thinks he is a genius or both at the same time? The best I know for wanky kingdom building is maybe Lest Darkness Fall. I tried reading 1633 but its scope is too focused on characters and that sort of drama instead of grand strategy.

>>10927207
Just look up English web novels, or LitRPG, it's the native equivalent. Try the Chaos Seeds series.

Also I really hate isekai stories, what do you even see in them?

>>10926669
>any good
Why yes, there's
>new books
oh...

>>10927239
>isekai
no I'm talking about tensei. It hits the sweetspot for me since im an underachiever. Basically "if i knew now what i knew back then" wetdreams

If it is an isekai tensei, then my focus is still on tensei. I don't hate isekai on its own, but I am tired of all the stories with yet another adventurer's guild or stupid MMO level systems. Speaking of english web novels, the only one I'm really following right now is Mother of Learning and it's kind of getting tiring now. The power wank was delicious, but the awkward dialogue shows often.

>>10927285
If you don't like MMO leveling systems, then I take back my Chaos Seeds recommendation. Unfortunately, I don't know any tensei stories in the western medium. And the only web novel I've been able to swallow was Worm by Wildblow, so if you haven't yet, maybe check that out. No reincarnation, but it's long and has neat powers/systems that involve insects

>>10926669
Wild wastes
Super sales on Super heroes
Daniel Black
Demons of astlan
The sort of dark mage
Confessions of a d list supervillain

>>10926829
>nazi
>good
Why does pol always come with their contradictory shit?

>>10926942
>Royal Assassin
>it's about an assassin that doesn't assassinate people
That recommending shit books.

>>10927310
>Worm
oh that one with the neat perspective on superheroes/villains, I did read that already though I forgot all about it until you mentioned in. I don't remember if I finished it though so I'll take a look at it again.

There's another english web novel I read that I can't quite remember the name of. It was some man nurse who meets some dude that grants him a wish to go back in time as a teen. Guy becomes a manwhore basically, conflict whatever, uses future knowledge to buy stocks, more conflict with the dude who accidentally gave him the wish and so on. Probably the most wankiest (and in literal terms too) english novel I've read, but still being bearable and fun to read unlike most JP otaku-bait novels. Wonder if anyone came across this one and still remembers the name

>>10926942
Coldfire Trilogy is far better. Tho some can argue that's sci fi

There is alot of fantasy set in a medieval setting but why aren't these elements incorporated in Renaissance era and early modern settings?
Like an East India Company like corporation getting attacked on the seas by orc pirates and wizards and mages getting shot at by muskets and shit

>>10917559
Jesus I remember that part. Whole series were shit but his white knight interactions with the whore were the worst part.

>>10910680
your flowchart is garbage fuck off

>>10927285
>"if i knew now what i knew back then"
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, main character travels back in time 30 years and has to use his knowledge to save the city or something. It might not be wish fulfillment but at least it's good.

>>10927521
The Iron Dragon's Daughter has fantasy in a late 20th century setting. Dragons fused with fighter-jets, spell-wards as shop security systems. The book is kind of a downer at times, for example the concept of the yearly maiden sacrifice for the good of society brought into an age of TV celebrities. Lots of death, sex (& sex magic) and cocaine.

Thoughts on this? Read it a while back and it stuck with me the entire time

>>10927414
>she wouldn't read a book where Hitler was actually trying to unify the world before a predicted alien invasion but failed so now we're doomed.

@ALL

what do people think of Stephens King's Revival? It blew my mind because the book was good but the ending was so unexpected (or maybe I am just brainlet?) but other people say its nothing special. What does /lit/ think?

>>10927934
nigga hitler couldn't even coherently lead germany.

>>10927974
That's what makes it a tragedy friendo.

>>10928000
I see you have a extremely pedestrian understanding of WWII.

>>10926942
>dark fantasy
negative

>>10917300

Christ, why bother? The second was terrible. Did the third improve?

>>10928038
I don't follow. Are we talking about the same thing?

should I read Gardens of the Moon or The Dragonbone Chair?

>>10927951
I liked it, but he was kinda shy about exposing the paranormal, even if we consider other weird fiction authors(not saying King is a weird fiction writer, but this book in particular is)

>>10928211
GotM by far. The full series is exceptional.

how's Ninefox Gambit?

>>10928540
One of the better books I've read recently though it seems to intentionally go out of its way *not* to explain the whole battle maths mechanics.

>>10928540
One of the better scifi stories I've read in recent years. Felt very "40k but shiny and modern instead of gothic" in a way.

>>10928612
>though it seems to intentionally go out of its way *not* to explain the whole battle maths mechanics.

Personally I liked that. Fuck "world building."

first for flavor

oh, right. only new threads.

>>10928818
>>10928887
>>10928923
Get out of here wH*te boy

>>10928972
>tfw refresh
Ain't gonna rid me so easy brotha

>>10929001
>>10928923
>>10928887
>>10928818
CREAMS TAKING OVER. IGNORE ALL NON-CREMIES!

>>10920279
Bugg

>>10928211
The Dragonbone Chair, and then complete the trilogy of course.
>>10928278
Are you kidding

>>10928887
You called?

>>10927521
It's a tough question. I imagine a lot of fantasy writers either lack originality, want to emulate tolkien or are simply churning out known quantities for profit. Meanwhile, publishers see that medieval european fantasy is the most consistently profitable subgenre which leads them to publish it more willingly thus increasing its majority hold on the medium which they see as evidence that it's profitable

As a result most fantasy that doesn't take place in the writer's own lifetime is bound to take place in a narrow and fairly homogenous span of space and time

If you're looking for some historic fantasy that isn't medieval, here are a few recommendations of various standards of quality

>The Golem and The Jinni (great shit)
>Fevre Dream (good shit)
>A Green and Ancient Light (decent shit)
>The Powder Mage Trilogy (shit)

>>10927239
>Hating isekais

m8

I enjoy fish out of water adventure stories where a person discovers the skills, talents and knowledge they poses at hand can be used to thrive.

Also because of the settings loose feel an author can get creative as fuck without breaking immersion, even if they rarely push boundaries.

>>10914270
Which Palmer are you guys talking about? A Google search on "Palmer sci-fi" or "Palmer science-fiction" got me nowhere, I promise. Shill me some of his books.

>>10929491
Too Like the Memes

ready for some EDGE?

>>10928278
>The full series is exceptional.
lol good one.

>>10929777
Checked.

I want to read according to my team, what are some green authors or books?

>>10930658
I can only come up with The Green Mile and anything by John Green, but he's a horrible author so I would not recommend it. Unless anyone else can come up with something we might have to accept that Team Mini have bad literature.

>>10930658
Green Mars?

>>10931052
Yeah, that seem green enough.

>bestselling author of blue mars
Seems like he's got a theme going.

>>10931052
Red Mars is the first of the trilogy. The characters mostly suck arse and and you find yourself wishing they were dead quite a lot, but it's got some magnificent autism when it comes to the terraforming side of things.

fucking team chocolate
always ruining threads

I'm highly interested in what team the next OP will be.

This was classy as fuck.

What's up with these teams?

>>10931399
Some kind of April Fools' Day joke.

>>10931448
honestly i liked merged boards much better.
some of them could have stuck around.

>>10931525
/cock/ wasn't really a original creation anyway and /fit/lit/ is mentioned all the time.

>>10912828
Which one?

>>10929457
Thanks I’ll check out some of these

>>10929777
>Mark Lawrence is the best thing to happen to fantasy in recent years.
That’s obviously not true. But who is then?

>>10932278
Does it have to be someone?

I want to be on Team Creme because they are the winners!

>>10932312
I’d hope so

>>10932278
Peter V. Brett shouldn't be allowed to make such claims anyway

>>10932278
Economically speaking, it would have to be Sanderson or George Martin. But if we are talking more about creativity in contemporary Fantasy then my votes would be:

Adrian Tchaikovsky
China Miéville
Guy Gavriel Kay
Susanna Clarke
Jonathan Carroll

Nothing ruins my immersion in a fantasy novel more than a author trying to present a "western europe fantasy" when they don't know a fucking thing about the medieval period.

>>10932489
Susanna Clarke haven't released anything in 12 years.

Guy Gavriel Kay and Miéville are decent picks.

>>10932489
>Guy Gavriel Kay

Clumsy and repetitive prose and he mainly writes historic novels and changes the names.

Enough good recommendations.


Post the worst piece of shit you managed to read all the way through in the last year.

has anyone read anything by this lad?

I'm looking for some generic, comfy fantasy to read

>>10932520
>the last year
Resistance is Futile. It's a book about a quirky nerd girl with red hair and glasses that meet a 50 Shades-tier water alien and have sex. It was not completely unreadable, but I would not recommend it to someone. Also, I got the fucking book as a gift and now I'm unsure how to get rid of it.

>>10932520
Troy Rising.

It's the book where aliens are addicted to maple syrup, the blondes go into heat and the rednecks are the new economical power of the world. Some nice concepts there about space engineering, but totally not worth it.

>>10932520
Ready Player One.

>>10932489
I’ve only read Kay and Clarke. I’ll look
at those others

>>10932520
The Warded Man

>>10933174
I recently tried reading this, boy was I bored. I'd heard a bunch of good things but was struggling to stay awake during the first 50 pages. I'm guessing that means it doesn't get better?

New Thread
>>10933227
>>10933227
>>10933227

>>10932520
Time enough for love. Did not finish it tho. But was close enough.

>>10933222
it's /GRI/ as fuck

>>10933396
>/GRI/
can you explain what this means?

>>10932510
>Susanna Clarke haven't released anything in 12 years.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell has been pretty influential/acclaimed tho. The anon was asking for authors not book titles right?

>>10932519
>mainly writes historic novels and changes the names
Isn't that just most fantasy in a nutshell? A Song of Ice and Fire, cough cough